Beijing and Rotterdam eco cities? Using 100 criteria for a classification of ecological cities paper

Climate change forces cities to go for climate mitigation, or for adaptation activities. Cities aware of their environmental challenges have introduced policies and programs todeal with these issues. They want to become more ecological or eco cities. Many cities claim to be ecological cities, but there are no non-ambiguous definitions of ecological cities. In this paper criteria are suggested for defining ecological cities and an effort is made to operationalize these criteria. Earlier efforts to come up with definitions of an eco-city have been undertaken by Kenworthy (2006), Bhatanagar (ed., 2010) and Van Dijk(2006). Many initiatives have been taken to become more sustainable or to create ecological neighborhoods or cities. It would be useful to rate these efforts. It is suggested to use ten criteria to define ecological cities and to make an effort to operationalize these criteria. They range from the use of energy and water to how to deal with climate change issues in an integrated way. Subsequently these criteria will be used to determine to what extent European and Asian cities can be called ecological cities